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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Ahoy! Swiftboating of Obama coming?

Ron Fournier, the AP's longtime campaign watcher, writes today that for the Clinton campaign "it's panic button time." So what's next? The idea supposedly didn't come from the Clintonistas, but the Swiftboating of Obama may be at hand. Here's a new post by Marc Ambinder at theatlantic.com: "Allies of Hillary Clinton plan an expensive, stealth campaign to buttress her standing in the must-win states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. They're canvassing Clinton donors for pledges of up to $100,000 in the hope of raising at least $10M by the end of next week. The money will be placed in the account of a political committee organized under section 527 of the tax code.

"By law, the 527 cannot coordinate its activities with the Clinton campaign, although at least one major Clinton donor with direct ties to the campaign said last night that the effort was an open secret among donors. (Update: Per ABC's Jake Tapper, the group is calling itself the "American Leadership Project" and is staffed by several veterans of the Clinton White House.)" The group's first ad in Ohio, however, has a more positive spin:

1 comment:

Robert Holmgren said...

By 'Swift Boating' are you referring to efforts by people with personal knowledge of another individual's malfeasance to disseminate such knowledge to a broader audience, as well as the response to such efforts by the bad actor to hide from view records that would either prove the case or exonerate the person charged or select portions of such records for distribution to selected members of the media?

By 'media' I refer to those in the news gathering business who sat idly for two weeks after such charges saw the light of day, but who are at this very moment writing and commenting on things said to them concerning John McCain for which scant evidence exists.